Animal specimens at the new Shanghai Natural History Museum in the Jing'an Sculpture Park.[Photo/]

Digital and interactive displays will be a big part of the relocated Shanghai Natural History Museum, which is scheduled to open sometime in the second quarter next year at the Jing'an Sculpture Park.

Visitors to the museum will be able to access 300 digital pictures on their tablet computers and smartphones. There will be 104 other interactive media products like games and 200 micro-movies.

It will also have 10 regular exhibition spaces, a discovery center for students, and five theaters with emphasis on evolution and the relationship between the different species, officials said.

The new museum will have a total of 11,000 specimens. Some 280-odd African specimens will be displayed at the Walk Into Africa section.

The museum will have over 20 teaching materials for kindergarten and middle school students. Thirty students from the Jing'an District No. 1 Primary School had an early look at the museum yesterday.

"I have been to the old museum before but the new one has more specimens," said He Jiaqi, a fifth-grade student.

Shanghai's old museum of natural history opened in 1956 and was located on Yan'an Road E.

It closed on May 12 this year.